


Sefikura Week 2018

by Illusioneery (Arkee)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts, Mobius Final Fantasy
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Concerning Imagery, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hanahaki Disease, Keeping Your Enemies Way Closer Than You Should, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Control, Minor Character Death, Potion Shop AU, Reanimating The Dead, Robot AU, Self Harm, Temporary Character Death, The Non-OG/Compilation Tags apply to the last chapter only, Unexpected Occurrences, Wing Kink, Zack As A Literal Dog, puppet!cloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkee/pseuds/Illusioneery
Summary: A compilation of the entries for the Sefikura Week





	1. Pillowtalk (Showing Up Unexpectedly)

**Author's Note:**

> More info on the Sefikura Week and its prompts [here](https://sefikuraweek.tumblr.com/post/169804893781/)!
> 
> My chapter count reads 6 instead of 7 because I'm drawing for the last day ;D (My art blog's url is illusioneery in case anyone wants to see the last day's drawing once that's up)
> 
> The fills for the prompts will be mostly (maybe entirely) unrelated to one another. (As I'm giving titles to those, I'll put them as 'Title (Prompt)' ) There might be open endings for some of them that... eh, I might or not touch again someday. In case I don't touch any of the open ended stuff at all after this week... well, I'll leave it to your imagination ^^
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Cloud walked into his room and stopped, retreated the way he came and leaned against the nearest wall. He took in a deep breath to get himself under control after what he saw.

_ There’s no way this isn’t some sort of fever dream, _ he silently told himself, shutting his eyes closed.  _ A nightmare. _

He tried the room again. It wasn’t a battlefield or the ruins of a city that decayed more and more as time went by. It wasn’t a secret laboratory deep within the ground or a reactor in a distant (burning) mountain town in the countryside. It was nowhere other than the place he chose to live in, having built it all from the ground up, far away from the agitation of Edge and everything.

And yet, piercing green eyes stared at him.

Staying as close to the exit as he could, Cloud felt his hand twitching to reach for a sword that wasn’t there, reaching for the towel around his waist instead so it wouldn’t fall and make things even more complicated than they were already. He tried his best to keep his eyes from wandering where they shouldn’t, yet his best was far from perfect and he stared anyway, regretting doing so.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Cloud asked because he felt that, if he didn’t say something, anything, they’d just keep at that through the whole day. (Or what remained of it, as the afternoon had already engulfed most of it.)

Sephiroth tilted his head to a side in confusion, his bangs partially covering his face as he did, and he shrugged.

“I lost a bet.”

Cloud looked down at his towel and back to the bed where Sephiroth was sitting, a sheet or two covering his lap.

“...Are you naked?”

“Yes,” and then he repeated it, as though that was the answer meant to explain everything in the entire universe, “I lost a bet.”

“Do you have Masamune with you?” Cloud asked instead of rolling his eyes or holding the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he’d been tempted to do, taken aback by the surreality of the situation.

“No.”

“Will you summon it?”

“You don’t have your sword with you. There’s no point.”

Cloud moved away from the door at last, sitting on the bed but with his eyes trained on the enemy just in case it was a trap. Sephiroth let himself fall against the soft pillows with a quiet noise, not bothering with fixing the sheets covering part of his body as he turned on his side. Cloud tensed as he was stared at again.

“I won’t attack you,” Sephiroth offered, softly enough for it to feel more domestic than it probably should, “Relax, Cloud. Consider it a truce.”

“Easier said than done.”

Sephiroth smiled at that, letting out a little noise of amusement and closing his eyes; so vulnerable in appearance for anyone who didn’t know any better about those deadly reflexes of his.

Silence fell as Cloud contemplated that entire situation, unsure of what he should do with a Sephiroth who wasn’t trying to engage in potentially world wide destructive activities, who was rather lying on his bed wearing nothing and apparently about to fall asleep.

“You said you lost a bet?”

Sephiroth cracked an eye open, staring intently behind his long eyelashes before closing it again.

“Zack,” he said, as though that name alone explained most of what happened, at least for the results, “We had a bet on whether or not you’d yell at that man earlier for ever so slightly ruining the paint on your motorcycle. I thought you’d be more reasonable.”

“And would you be reasonable if someone broke the tip of the Masamune?” Cloud shot back.

Cloud smiled, a little proud of himself, when there came no answer for that question. He watched Sephiroth turn his back to him, wondering if what he was feeling was in any way similar to what Vincent probably felt whenever he said anything that made people around him fall quiet and think.

“I’m reasonable,” Sephiroth muttered all of sudden, “You break many parts of me when we fight but I didn’t try to kill you for it.”

“What does that even mean? You’re always trying.”

There were no further comments after that. Cloud’s mind started to go places he wouldn’t like it to go to while dressed in nothing but a towel, especially not with Sephiroth barely an arm’s reach away from him. Places that offered an unsettling doubt, requiring clarification but also suggesting he should fear the possible knowledge of it as though his life depended on it.

He stared at a spot on Sephiroth’s back where an oddly healed line of tissue formed a thin scar, trying his best not to ask the question haunting his mind; trying and failing.

“You... were trying to kill me, right?”

“I’m tired of fighting you,” Sephiroth said instead, confusing him further and explaining nothing.

Cloud tentatively lied down when the silence stretched between the two of them once more, still disturbed by the surreality of everything but unable to focus on a single emotion to summarize the thought of it all; a bright orange towel around his hips and his archenemy on his bed, not far from him. His mind fluttered, also tired of the motions of battle that more than once gave him a sense of purpose in the past, but not quite grasping Sephiroth’s previous words. He’d felt Masamune bury its way deep inside his flesh, after all, always so close to stealing his life away but failing in the face of the rapid recovery typical of those who went through the SOLDIER treatment or a similar procedure, of the various circumstances of their fights.

And as much as it was dangerous to allow himself to be distracted, he got carried away anyway, failing to notice the mattress moving just slightly until he felt Sephiroth's head against his chest.

“I just want to sleep, now,” Sephiroth said, and Cloud half wished all of it was nothing but some sort of fever dream or a really intense hallucination he'd wake up from shortly, to find only tangled sheets around his body.

But oh, it was so real.

It was real and it rendered him unmoving, unsure of what to do with himself when he had a non-threatening Sephiroth embracing him as though it was the most natural of the occurrences.

“You can… sleep,” Cloud found himself muttering, against what common logic and his own experiences told him to do.

He thought about what would possibly happen whenever Sephiroth would wake up next, barely catching a whispered “Thank you” but definitely noticing strong arms tightening around his body. The warmth of that was just enough to slowly lull him into sleep, despite his mind shouting at him to stay awake, no matter what kind of… tenderness he was being offered.

Cloud dreamed that he’d wake up only to notice all his materia was gone again and that someone would call him to inform that the world needed saving again or something. Instead, he woke up to his face being gently caressed, which stopped as soon as his awareness was noticed. Sephiroth offered to make dinner.

And Cloud couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he’d agreed to by allowing his nemesis to stay.


	2. Necromancy (Puppet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth wins, but there's a catch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are implications of self-harm in this. Also the kind of imagery relative to... zombies (as in the falling apart/opening up here and there) that I don't really know how to warn about but I feel that it needs a warning.
> 
> And all the usual tags that follow stories with puppet elements.
> 
> If any of those things may cause you discomfort, don't read! Your own safety comes first!
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy! ^^

When the fight is long done and the dust resulting from it has long since settled down, when there’s nothing of the world left, he takes the pieces of what used to be Cloud Strife and keeps them safely close to himself as he prepares for the long trip through the stars.

_Search for a new home, search for a new Planet._

The empty shell of what used to be Gaia fades so many light-years away behind him, behind the trail of Lifestream following his lead. He’s tired as he finds his final destination; all the way east of the previous Planet and west of a beautiful, glittering constellation. A place where the wind will blow gently and everything will start anew.

Sephiroth allows the Lifestream to touch it, to merge with the new Planet’s already existent (but fading) life force and take over; creating life wherever it was missing it, without having to worry about a wound to heal.

And just as the new world takes proper shape, he locks himself away and places the pieces of Cloud together with the utmost care, intending to bring back to life his perfect puppet, the one who will lead the humans into not going back to the old ways of mako and experimentation as he pulls the strings behind the curtain. An oracle of a god.

On the seventh day, Cloud Strife comes alive again, willing to obey his every order.

Sephiroth adores every single part of him, from his messy golden hair to his bright, blue eyes to the tips of his fingers in hands that look so small when resting on the palms of Sephiroth’s own. He loves the soft sounds of his breathing when Cloud is too tired to remain awake with him through the quiet night. He loves the gentle reverence with which Cloud regards him and, in turn, he’s loved.

He is loved so deeply that Cloud breaks away from his strings in an attempt to praise him even further.

And once that happens, Cloud begins to think, starts to question; inquiry after inquiry until he’s no longer satisfied with the vague answers Sephiroth gives him and starts to seek knowledge out on his own. He remembers what he has lost. He remembers the fire, the blood and the pain. He recalls a long sword being thrust through his chest countless times and grows restless, doubting his trust in Sephiroth.

The places where his old scars used to be open again by themselves and the despair eats him alive until he’s no longer singing love songs, until he’s no longer touching gently.

Until he’s no longer _breathing._

Sephiroth picks up what remains of him and settles down to work again, fixing Cloud up as though he’s nothing but a broken automaton constructed from scratch, a beloved wind-up doll of beautiful, delicate yet fierce features.

Cloud breathes again.

He has no clue of what happened to him, but he’s ready to serve once again, offering guidance to the humans by day and entertaining his god by night. He fits in his strings just well, passing forward the message Sephiroth wants him to and returning home whenever he’s summoned back.

Cloud offers him those small, gentle smiles once Sephiroth has satisfied his urges with him, finding the simple reward of obtaining a similar relief to be good enough. Sephiroth thinks he likes him just like that, all the willing gentleness serving as a proof of the actual prize conquered long ago. No longer opposing him and never to oppose him ever again.

(Unable to show that defiance of his true self.)

The most beautiful, precious thing in the entire universe.

Sephiroth breathes life into him and earns back love. No one interrupts them or questions anything.

Well, except for Cloud, once his love grows enough for him to take a dip into (dangerous) sheer curiosity; once the inquiries come again and are rewarded with false answers, false promises. Detours.

“Will we be together forever?” Cloud asks, but Sephiroth isn’t sure of his answer anymore when he says “Yes, we will.”

Cloud breaks again, such a fragile little thing.

“I brought you into this world and I’ll always love you,” Sephiroth tells him once he’s up again and can breathe, not a memory of the past left to spoil any of it; all completely erased when Sephiroth adjusted his hold on him, tied back the strings he’d pull on once more.

_So please, please I beg, love me too._

Cloud loves until he remembers again, injuring himself in his personal guilt and regrets and leaving Sephiroth to deal with a messy, bloody scattered puzzle again; to assemble him back piece by piece until everything is only love, love and _love._

(Or is it nothing but a self-indulgent illusion?)

And Cloud breaks, his body unable to deal with the truth that he’s been dead for a long time without returning to the Lifestream even once. He shatters as he's no long supposed to exist, so long gone back when they traveled through the stars, and he’s put back into the shape of the doll Sephiroth liked the most, reanimated into life to play house together.

The cycle repeats, endlessly.

Sephiroth knows he doesn't have any true control over it but he keeps the game up regardless of it, sewing the corpse back up to its former shape and healing the wounds until the scars disappear back into smooth, pale skin before he’s able to breathe new life into his puppet.

“It's good to see you, Cloud,” he says to the doll who doesn't suspect the truth of his own fate, at least not yet.

“I’m glad to see you, too, master,” comes the reply, as it's fit for the occasion.

And so, Sephiroth prepares himself to pull on the strings until they can no longer endure holding Cloud upright, once more.

_(Again and again and forever.)_


	3. Magus (Hanahaki + Recovery)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's a sorcerer living in the woods with his dog familiar, running a potion shop there. A rather peculiar client enter his shop and his life one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I got too hyped about this day that I pretty much just 1. Used both prompts and 2. Wrote a lot, whoops.
> 
> The usual warnings for Hanahaki disease go here.
> 
> And I think everything aside from rosemary follows their Hanakotoba (Japanese Flower Language) here. (Rosemary here stands for remembrance.)

In all those years since Cloud moved to the woods, not even once his potions failed or backfired.

By then he wasn’t sure anymore if that was a result of him witnessing a little girl screaming in pain and dissolving into a thousand butterflies due to his mother’s mistake, back when he was a child, or if it was because of the love and dedication he had for his work. He decided it didn’t really matter much as long as things stayed the way they were.

Zack told him once, in that voice only Cloud could hear, that he was just a perfectionist, before turning around himself in small circles and finding just the right position to lie down on the floor comfortably.

(Cloud ran a hand through his familiar’s dark fur and avoided arguing with that old dog. Considering their connection, Zack might as well be correct about that.)

People came to his shop for all the sorts of reasons; to seek a cure for the most rare of the illnesses, to save a dying business, to obtain a blessing so their wedding would go well. Cloud gave them a time estimate for the job to be done and would get to work, getting a hold of the ingredients required, gently coaxing oils out of plants, juice out of berries and gently grinding certain other things into dust, before mixing whatever the recipe asked of him and allowing time for the concoctions to settle.

Every once in a while, people would come looking for a love potion.

Cloud’s potions never failed, not even once. But there was a thing about love potions that made them basically a gamble on that perfect streak of his.

For one, a strong love potion required seven rice lilies, as fresh as one could get them. An ingredient that had to be brewed in a specific way or else it’d would turn out as a smelly concoction to curse someone in some way or another. Along with it, the essence of rosemary would ensure that the person drinking the potion wouldn’t forget the receiver, regardless of the final effect.

It also required that the giver’s relationship with the receiver to be a healthy one, otherwise the potion would turn into a poison instead, killing the other person in a week’s time. It was entirely possible for the potion to just fail for no clear reason, as well.

But more important of it all was that one brewing that sort of potion shouldn’t have any feelings of love for their client or else the concoction would fail entirely and its maker would be afflicted by a curse.

It made Cloud wonder for each of those he brewed, if his luck with such potions had something to do with his last name being Strife, a curse in itself that seemed to ignore all the other curses in the world aside from its own.

* * *

A stranger walked into his potion shop; hair colored like the moonlight, his eyes green and much like a cat’s.

Something about that man was very unnerving, enough for Zack to stand and bark even before he had properly entered the place; enough for Cloud to end up wondering whether or not the possible client was actually a cat in disguise and having a dog bonded to him caused Cloud to have an odd reaction about that.

“Can I help you?”

The stranger seemed to be as much on edge as he was, probably because of the dog barking right there at his feet. Cloud gestured at Zack to stop that and stay on the back of the shop for a while.

“Yes, it’s my chocobo. She hasn’t been eating properly for a couple weeks now. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Oh... wait a moment, please,” Cloud said as he turned to search through a nearby shelf, “I must have something around here... She’s a black, right?”

He couldn’t see the client’s face but could feel the man’s astonishment in his reply.

“How would you know that?”

“You have a black feather on your hair.” He smiled. “Not that it matters. You just confirmed it anyway.” Cloud returned to the counter with a bottle. “There you go. Mix two spoonfuls of it and five drops of dew with her water and she’ll be eating just fine in three days, give or take.” He offered the client another smile, albeit more business like “That’ll be five hundred gil.”

Their business concluded, the stranger paid and took his leave, only to return three days later with good news of his beloved bird and a homemade cake as an extra thanks.

* * *

When the stranger came back a fourth time, looking for a potion for someone he knew who was sick, Cloud couldn’t help but ask for his name.

Sephiroth it was, like the hero who single handedly won a war, according to an old Nibelan tale. A name that was also cursed, as certain versions of the tale told that after the war was over, the hero became a demon.

Zack complained to Cloud yet again that their new regular customer smelled just like an old cat.

* * *

Cloud’s potions never failed.

Just as well, Cloud never refused to pick up work that he was sure he could do.

And that’s why, when Sephiroth — Now a regular client and friend, owner of a moody black chocobo named after the beautiful flames that more than often kept adventurers warm, and son of a woman who’d taken part in a forbidden ritual involving a cursed cat before his birth, as Cloud had learned — came to his cozy potion shop in the woods and asked for a love potion to be made, Cloud went into the details of the job instead of saying “no”.

Sephiroth often brought him homemade cakes, pastries and more, even though Cloud said one time he didn’t need to spoil him like that. Sephiroth sometimes dropped by his shop while ingredients for the potions were drying or when the concoctions themselves were cooling down and settling, while there were no clients, to simply talk to him. He was kind and deserved being with the person he was interested in.

Cloud didn’t say “no” but he felt his stomach turn for some unknown reason.

After Sephiroth was gone once again, Zack barked at Cloud like he had never done before, his endless energy converted in anger.

“Zack?”

“Are you trying to kill us?” He asked.

Cloud tilted his head in confusion and Zack huffed.

“You can’t make him that potion, buddy. Any potion except that one.”

“Why not? He passes all the safety checks with flying colors—“

“But you don’t.”

Cloud fell quiet, trying to process what that meant but finding no logical response to it that confirmed what Zack was trying to say.

“I’m not in love with Sephiroth,” he offered, still confused. “He’s just... a regular who knows how to bake  _ very _ well and likes to share.”

It was Zack’s turn to tilt his head a little.

“You have a dog bonded to you. He seduced you with food.”

Cloud snorted and much to Zack’s horror, just said, “I can make his potion without problem. Don’t worry.”

* * *

The potion he handed to Sephiroth, once the work on it was done, was the very first one which failed.

It didn’t curse anyone neither poisoned.

It simply had no effect whatsoever.

Cloud dreamed of a little girl, her hair the color of chocolate and her eyes like cherries, exploding into a thousand golden butterflies. His mother intended to brew something to free the girl from the night terrors she had after her mother passed. She made some kind of exorcism potion instead, that once used on someone free from possession, acted like a murder weapon instead; a failure that stole the joy away from Cloud’s mother and eventually stole her away from him, like the flowers wilting near the window.

He woke up panting and found himself unable to sleep again, his equally restless familiar staring at him from the other side of the room.

* * *

It started slowly.

He’d been talking to Sephiroth, who came to give him a cake despite his failure ( _ “I know you tried your best,” he’d said _ ) and share with him the latest tales of the civilization away from the woods, when he started coughing, feeling as if there was something scratching his throat.

Cloud drank a glass of water and whatever it was that bothered him in the first place stopped doing so.

“Maybe it’s the weather,” Sephiroth offered. “Make sure to drink plenty of water.”

He nodded, refilling his glass and trying his best to not start coughing again.

* * *

Cloud woke up one morning to find a yellow petal on his bed that he must have drooled on while sleeping. A tulip’s, he recognized, even if it wasn’t something he usually included in his potions. It was the flower of someone who loved but didn’t receive similar affection in return; a little curse.

He got out of the bed to dispose of it but dropped it as he started coughing; something very insistent in his throat that wouldn’t go down, that needed him to pull it out or else it’d make him choke.

Reaching with his fingers, he pulled a petal, twin to the one on his floor and thought they must have been carried inside by the wind, that he must have slept with his mouth wide open.

But his windows were closed and he panicked, instead.

* * *

It seemed to happen more often whenever Sephiroth dropped by.

He knew what it was by then, knew that Zack was most likely correct even though he refused to accept the truth, himself, keeping glasses of water around so he could drink and swallow every petal before they could turn into a bother and raise suspicion of his loyal customer and friend.

No one aside from Zack needed to know that, once Sephiroth left, Cloud would cough and cough until he had a handful of yellow petals in his hands and the question in his head of how long he’d last like that before he either died or sought a treatment he didn’t want, to remove his one-sided feelings for Sephiroth.

There was, however, something Zack got wrong. It wasn’t just the food or the small talk. It was the small acts of kindness, the strange grace with which Sephiroth carried himself. The fact that he bothered coming from so far every so often just to see him.

And in realizing that, Cloud started to throw up entire flowers other than just individual petals.

Zack stayed quiet in his corner — too quiet — trying not to think of certain death.

* * *

“I want to call off our pact,” said Cloud one day, after noticing his tulips were coming out covered in blood.

Zack stood to attention.

“I don’t want you to die, too, Zack.”

Not that Zack wouldn’t pass anyway due to his age and the lack of a bond with anyone, (Cloud doubted he could find a new master so quickly; dogs had to form a bond of trust before being made into familiars) but Cloud didn’t want that to happen because of his curse.

Zack offered him no reply of his own.

“Would you grab the red spider lily for me, so we can—“

The bell above the front door rang and Cloud watched as Zack’s ears perked up in curiosity and interest, even though he knew who it was, even though he had complained so much about the scent of a cat.

Cloud stumbled to his feet, already feeling the itch deep in his throat and getting himself a glass of water on his way to the front of the store. He drank from it and shouted “I’ll be with you in a moment!” to which he heard a “Take your time!” in that deep voice that made his heart beat faster, that required him to drink another glass of water to get his flowers under control.

_ Don’t let him know, don’t let him know, don’t let him know. _

“You look a little pale today,” Sephiroth noted, placing a box on the counter that smelled just like Cloud’s favorite cake and holding a slip of paper in one hand, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” replied Cloud, but his voice came out hoarse.

Gaia, his throat felt so  _ full. _

Sephiroth opened his mouth to say something about the weather and  _ haven’t you been outside so late that you would catch a cold, have you? _ But Cloud started coughing. Started and kept going, hands covering his mouth and tears forming on the corner of his eyes, unable to stop. Something yellow escaped through his fingers, then another and another as Sephiroth made his way around the counter to get to him, to lead Cloud away to the back of the shop that acted as a living room of sorts.

Halfway through to the couch, the flowers became so many that it was impossible for him to hold them while keeping his hands over his mouth; so many that he doubled over, not falling only because Sephiroth was holding him and gently pulling one of his wrists away to uncover his mouth.

“Don’t cover your mouth,” he whispered, seemingly unsurprised by the entire situation, “if you hold them in, you’ll suffocate.”

Cloud’s hands were bloody with yellow petals covered in red sticking to his palms as he shakily let go, his vision growing dark around the edges. He coughed more as Sephiroth’s arm around him felt warm and firm, the man himself too close to him. He coughed because he was ashamed this was happening right in front of Sephiroth, of all people. He coughed and felt his consciousness slipping away.

“Please stay with me,” Sephiroth was mostly likely saying and as much as Cloud would have liked to do that, he couldn’t.

After all, Sephiroth didn’t love him the same way, right?

* * *

Cloud gasped as he woke up on his couch to something black that wasn’t Zack staring at him with big, curious eyes; a long neck making its way through his window so the creature could get a better look at him.

“Homura, out,” Sephiroth said from somewhere across the room, receiving an annoyed “wark” as a reply before the chocobo retreated her head, still watching anyway. “My apologies, I didn’t mean for her to startle you.” He made his way to the couch and crouched down near it. “How are you feeling?”

“...Awful,” Cloud rasped. He tried to sit up and once he did, a steaming cup was offered to him. Cloud looked at it still sleepy enough to be confused by its presence.

“Tea. It’ll help.”

Cloud felt an itch deep in his throat that he didn’t know whether it was him feeling like coughing again or the resulting damage from all his previous coughing. He took the cup from Sephiroth like it was a blessing, regardless.

Sephiroth waited for him to drink it before saying or doing anything else, terrified of having Cloud choke on anything for the moment.

When words finally came, they were in the shape of a question.

“Why didn’t you tell me you have Hanahaki?”

Cloud stared at him with wide eyes like a rabbit after noticing a hunter too late, quickly averting his gaze to his hands that held the empty cup over his blanket covered lap; clean, as if nothing had happened to dirty them.

Sephiroth knew  _ it _ by name. He wasn’t distressed like he should be over what should be either unknown or taboo to most people.

He apparently knew how to proceed about it during a crisis.

“How... how do you know what it is...?”

“A friend of mine,” Sephiroth said, a bit quiet, “he had it some time ago. I tried to get him to notice me so he would...  _ live, _ but he only had eyes for the blacksmith’s son.”

“So, the love potion...?”

Sephiroth hummed softly, confirming it. Cloud turned to him, an apology on the tip of his tongue that was interrupted before it even came out.

“He refused to drink it,” Sephiroth said with a sad smile, “He was always so stubborn when he decided on something... I told him he was going to die from being so stubborn and he just...” His breath caught and he sighed. It hadn’t been that much long since that happened, after all.

Cloud left his cup on the side table and pulled Sephiroth close to him for a moment, trying his best not to feel dizzy or nauseated when his hands touched that very soft, silver hair. He whispered the reason why he hadn’t said anything about his issue before, regretting it some when Sephiroth apologized as though he was at fault for that — which he was, indeed, but not intentionally.

It felt... strange. It wasn’t as if Cloud could get him to return his feelings just to save his life, but after that his lungs felt slightly lighter.

* * *

Sephiroth insisted to at least help by making him comfortable, which Cloud had gently refused at first, until he stood to get more water and had another, quite intense episode. He woke up to dinner that smelled so good that he thought for a moment that had been it and there was no way he couldn’t be dead.

But he wasn’t and soon enough Sephiroth was there again, with some hearty stew and awkward apologies for making himself far too comfortable around Cloud’s home like that.

Cloud acted on impulse, pulling him down for a kiss before even realizing what he was doing.

He watched as Sephiroth hummed to his apology and ruffled his hair after handing him a bowl of food, offering no word at all in return as he left the room.

Once he was gone, Cloud coughed again, but along with the tulip that came out there was a single white petal that looked much like a camellia’s.

* * *

The morning after that, Sephiroth came back with a bag of clothes and a request to stay so he could keep an eye on Cloud and help him. He didn’t mention anything about the kiss, at all. Maybe Cloud shouldn’t have expected him to say anything, anyway.

Not long after, Cloud found himself being lead back to his bedroom, Zack following after the two of them and sniffing Sephiroth’s every step, still constantly annoyed by the cat aspect in him.

“You should rest,” Sephiroth told him.

“I’m fine—“ Cloud tried but started coughing right away, yellow, white and (blood) red leaving his lips.

He was still wondering about the white part, those few camellia petals.

“Please, rest.” Sephiroth offered him a handkerchief. “I’ll make breakfast for us.”

Cloud nodded with a tired sigh, making himself comfortable after his hands and mouth were clean and pulling the covers up again as Sephiroth left for the kitchen.

Zack sat by the bed then, resting his head on the mattress. Cloud reached out to pat him gently, feeling a restlessness different from the usual emaning from his familiar.

“That cat smells like doubt,” he said, pressing his head up against Cloud’s hand. “I wonder if has something to do with the new flowers.”

“Do you think he could...?”

“Buddy. It’s either that or you getting that treatment. Otherwise... well...”

_ Otherwise you die and I’ll follow you. _

“I don’t want that treatment,” Cloud mumbled, his eyes closing. That was the reason why he’d intended to call off their pact, after all. He was ready to face death, but alone, carrying his feelings for Sephiroth with him until the end. “I really, really don’t want it…”

He drifted off again with that, always so quick to fall asleep and tired as he was.

It was short lived however, without any dreams and interrupted by the smell of pancakes and coffee. Cloud decided he didn't need to dream for the moment once he got to taste the breakfast. Sephiroth had a way with anything sweet that didn't help at all with that peculiar flower problem.

Cloud focused on that taste, knowing more flowers and blood would come again eventually.

* * *

He didn’t know whether having Sephiroth around was a relief or despair.

Cloud went from coughing with a certain intensity and frequency, from a gradual worsening of his condition, to sheer randomness. At times, he’d cough out his flowers covered in blood until he fainted. At other moments, he’d cough and cough and all that would come out would be a single petal, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, but never tainted by a trace of red.

Zack wondered aloud if constant exposure to Sephiroth wasn’t making Cloud realize how he was in a more domestic setting and, along with that, whether or not the guilty of having the man help when he was going to die anyway wasn’t replacing his love for him with something else, slowly.

But Sephiroth was still the same man who liked to visit him, bring him food and stories from the places away from the woods. He kept to himself the bitter details of his personal tragedies, only mentioning them when prompted to, and cooked as though he’d been taught to do so by a fairy or other kind of forest dweller. He didn’t mind sleeping on the couch or on a chair by Cloud’s bed, curling up on himself much like an oversized cat, still taken by a little discomfort due to being in a house with a dog.

He was still the same, and so was Cloud. The flowers were the ones which had changed, coming out as more white camellias than yellow tulips as the days passed, and that was the puzzling part.

But regardless of that, Cloud was still suffering and seeing Sephiroth even more often than usual wasn’t helping in the slightest.

* * *

He thought about teaching Sephiroth some basic spells while he still could, as a brief distraction from the issues his Hanahaki brought them. Issues that forced Cloud to close his shop, as he was unable to work on potions for the time they required them to without coughing through it and ruining the process somehow.

And finally, he found something Sephiroth was terrible at.

Sephiroth was a quick learner, picking up the words, gestures and right herbs without being told about them twice. But he couldn’t quite guide them into doing what he wanted without causing a disaster or achieving a smaller version of what he originally intended to do. He would cast a healing wave but it’d give him a slow, regeneration effect instead of the instant health recovery it was supposed to offer. He would cast a small fire spell and wouldn’t be able to control it as it increased and increased in power.

Zack had the time of his life observing things go wrong, being lucky that Sephiroth couldn’t understand him.

“What’s he even wagging his tail for?” Sephiroth ended up asking in his frustration.

“Ah, don’t mind him. He’s a mischievous little thing, that’s all.”

_ A mischievous wind spirit in dog form _ . Simple as that.

“Aw man, the fire thing was so funny,” Zack commented, knowing Sephiroth wouldn’t hear it as more than barking “Let him do that again.”

Sephiroth’s chocobo picked him up by the collar and carried him away, a barking thing still amused with all those magic mistakes despite his situation.

“Well, there he goes,” Sephiroth simply noted, causing Cloud to chuckle.

Chuckle and then  _ cough _ .  _ And here we go again, _ he thought, letting out nothing but white flowers and blood. He was guided gently to the floor so he could let everything out and make a mess that would go forgotten until he was back to the safety of his bed, resting.

Once he came back to his senses, Sephiroth was there, too, arms wrapped loosely around him and his face pressed gently against blond spikes of hair as much as Cloud had his face pressed against the man’s chest. Cloud didn’t want to move just in case that was a very vivid dream, not wanting to ruin any of it.

“I don’t know what I feel for you,” Sephiroth whispered suddenly, “I just don’t want you to die.”

Cloud tilted his head up to look at him, noticing the unspoken concern and doubt in those green eyes he liked so much. He wanted to apologize and say goodbye; wanted to send Sephiroth away so he wouldn’t have to watch him make like a flower near winter and wither away, so he wouldn’t make that kind of expression anymore, so full of sadness and despair.

Instead, he kissed his chin and whispered back, “I’m so glad we could meet.”

Sephiroth stared at him for a long moment, as though he’d been hit in the face with something. The next Cloud knew, Sephiroth was kissing him with the desperation of a man drowning.

* * *

After that, Cloud stopped having the kind of episode that made him faint and the blood soon became a less recurring sight whenever the flowers came out, as Sephiroth noted one night when both of them seemed to have a hard time falling asleep.

“Hn, maybe it’s the weather,” Sephiroth offered and Cloud almost pushed him out of the bed for it. (And by almost it meant that he tried, but Sephiroth held onto him and didn’t let go.)

“Well, someone’s been watering my garden, too, yeah,” Cloud mumbled, “And helping me feed my dog, looking after me and stealing my breath away...”

“And loving you.”

“And lovin— Wait. Say that again.”

“I love you.”

Cloud felt something in his chest flutter like petals in a calm breeze. He breathed and it felt as though someone had cast a spell on him that was blowing all of the flowers that remained away. Sephiroth was still terrible at magic but Cloud knew that was something he did. Magic, but without the traditional ways of casting involved in it.

“I love you, too,” he pulled Sephiroth even closer to him, whispering against his lips, “Gods, I love you so much.”

And as they kissed, he could feel something being lifted off him; something the words alone couldn’t lift before. That was the moment when he truly knew there’d be no more flowers other than the ones he harvested to use in his recipes.

* * *

Their potions didn't fail, as the sign outside their little shop read, along with a brief nod to the fact that they didn't work or carried love potions.

Cloud had become traumatized enough by the incident caused last time he tried to make one of those that brewing them was out of question for him. Sephiroth only made basic things or helped with whatever Cloud was making, but the mention of such a potion made his stomach sink with too many troublesome memories.

The only potion on that same level of difficulty Cloud had made since his recovery was one that allowed a familiar to be understood by whoever he gave the concoction to, firm on the belief that, if Sephiroth was moving in with them as a definitive thing, he should be able to understand Zack as well. No matter how the old dog felt unamused about it and how the beginning of that was full of fights. It worked, eventually.

_ Beware of the dog, _ a sign read, mostly because Zack was a trickster and not because he'd actually bite someone.  _ And the chocobo _ , a new addition followed, for the new trickster.

After another day of work, Sephiroth turned the sign on their door so it read “closed”.

“This was a long day,” he commented, stretching as he made his way around the counter and into their home behind the shop. Cloud hummed in agreement from where he was near the window, setting some potions there for the moonlight to enhance their effects.

“Take me to bed so I can give you a flower surprise,” Cloud simply said, with a look on his face that was far from being innocent, “A  _ good _ flower surprise.”

“I’m both worried and intrigued.”

“You should be afraid,” Zack said as he circled Sephiroth’s legs “He’s been working on this for some days now.”

Sephiroth reached a hand down, ignoring part of the warning and growing even more intrigued by what that could be. It sounded like a potion and it could very well be one. Otherwise, Sephiroth had no clue about what it could be.

Maybe he would find out about it soon.


	4. A New Addition (Wing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud mysteriously gains something unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This follows the events of day 1. And well, things get heated up this time. There's some wing kink going on there, for sure.
> 
> Unedited, so please forgive any errors ^^;

It had been several months since he walked into his room, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, to find Sephiroth on his bed, bedsheets offering the man some degree of privacy in his similar nakedness.

Cuddling with someone who was supposed to be the enemy had never been in Cloud’s life goals, neither was letting said enemy stay at his house and become some sort of roommate. But then again, he’d once invited into his team of misfits: a ninja girl who eventually stole from him, a talking creature whose species wasn't disclosed, a man who just  _ backflipped _ out of a coffin of all things as though it was a common occurrence and a robot cat who doubled as a fortune teller and spying apparatus for a Shinra employee. Those hadn't been in his plans either at first, but he learned to love them despite everything as he got to learn more about them. If Sephiroth refused to stab him, that shouldn't be any more surreal than all of those other situations he’d been into, he decided.

Cloud just had to spend time getting to know what Sephiroth was like when he wasn't keen on kicking his ass as some kind of sport, when he was rather interested in caressing his face as he slept and sharing a bed with him. (The couch was too small, Sephiroth didn’t want to steal his bed and kick him out, and Cloud didn't mind the company.)

Surprisingly, such a feat involved swords; hunting and sparring without trying to really hurt one another. Sephiroth would simply open up and say things out loud, hum songs he heard a long time ago, share tales from a time Cloud couldn't remember and ones he had never heard.

(There was one about a man who managed to achieve everything he wanted to except keep control of his servant in the long term. The servant would constantly escape in despair, in a manner or another.)

He thought that was it, that their truce would become some sort of awkward friendship over small talk and little gestures. Cloud hadn't been ready for the day Sephiroth would loom over him after a sparring session, long hair spilling around them like a curtain, and kiss him breathless. At least, he was lying down on the grass at the time, a good position to try to process what was happening while he kissed back, to try to understand why he was pulling Sephiroth down again to kiss him more after that.

From there it only escalated… greatly.

As it turned out, when he wasn't trying to stab anyone or drop a meteor on the Planet, Sephiroth could be  _ very _ domestic. So domestic and gentle that Cloud had fallen right into it, sitting on the man’s lap to watch (not so great) late night shows and movies when neither of them could really sleep; hugging Sephiroth when he found him cooking breakfast in the morning, in retribution of the hugs he got when he was the one cooking.

They cuddled, a lot. Sephiroth said often that he liked that new arrangement of theirs a lot more than what they had before, something Cloud could agree with, a smile on his face and a kiss to give. It’d get heated, hands would be involved, sounds would be drawn and pleasure would be shared. That was usually followed by more cuddling.

Gaia, Cloud was so glad Sephiroth lost that stupid bet.

He thought there wouldn't be much problem from there on, as long as Sephiroth wasn't out for the general public to see, again, which was something they both agreed on.

One day, however, he woke up in pain, as though Sephiroth had called off their peace and gone back to his old ways of stabbing him through the chest. He hadn't, but Cloud’s left side was killing him anyway.

“Seph…” he called, his voice almost a groan, “Seph, wake up.”

“Hn… something wrong?” Sephiroth yawned, which… was always rather cute, Cloud had to admit. If only he wasn't in so much pain.

“I feel… I feel like I’m dying…”

The sheets rustled as Sephiroth sat up abruptly and removed them, scanning his boyfriend’s (the word still felt silly to use, but it was the closest descriptor available to what they had) body for any telling signs it could be something else.

“What are you feeling?”

“My left side… so much… pain… Can’t move...”

Cloud was too lost in the feeling that he only let out a quiet moan as he was moved and made more comfortable. It was still awful, a burning sensation coursing through his left side and his heart beating so fast, so intensely he could practically hear it. His back was reddened, swelling somewhat.

Sephiroth knew exactly what that was. It didn't make sense to him it was happening to Cloud as well, but as it was, he had to take action.

“You’ll be alright,” he promised, “Breathe, keep lying down with your back up. I’ll be right back.”

A hand around his wrist kept him from going promptly.

“Please… d-don’t go…”

“It’s just one moment, I’ll get some warm water and a Cure.” Sephiroth gently broke out of that grip. “Stay awake, please.”

Cloud moaned but let go.

It didn't quite wait properly for Sephiroth to return, the event that followed that pain. He came back to a scream. And blood, oh, so much blood. They’d need new sheets, but that wasn't a concern for the time being. He needed Cloud to calm down; needed to heal him and clean around where the skin had broke so abruptly, so painfully, needed him not to panic over the news.

“Cloud. I’ll need you to stay calm. Just… relax.” Maybe he wouldn't react as badly, tired as he appeared to be. “You’ve grown a wing.”

* * *

“Wing” was a way to put it.

After the initial shock had passed and painkillers had been taken, he couldn’t help but notice how it looked like a pillow inside out near Sephiroth’s own, all small and covered in down. He almost looked like—

“A baby bird,” Sephiroth said, much to Cloud’s horror, while he placed a jar with white flowers on the nightstand near their bed. He looked at his lover with daggers in his eyes, the small wing on his back standing to attention. “Hn, I wonder what color your feathers will be…”

“You sound a little too excited about this, y’know. I thought we were past you having fun while I suffer.”

“My apologies…  _ my little bird _ .”

Cloud almost rolled over just to avoid looking at him. He couldn’t, however, as it’d hurt his wing. He groaned as he attempted to do it anyway, Sephiroth moving quickly to stop him.

“Why are we even dating? You’re an asshole.”

“Because… you say things like these and pretend to still hate me but you smile. And that makes you look like the sun.”

Cloud hid his face on a pillow to keep from smiling even more. He didn’t have words to reply to that, but Sephiroth was right. Gaia, not only he was right, he was also a big sap. Cloud both liked and hated that at the same time, intensely.

Kissing helped him forget that his wing was there.

* * *

He was glad they had enough groceries to last some weeks without leaving the house. Or that he wasn’t leaving the place at all, because as soon as he could stay out of the bed without feeling terrible, Cloud found out he really had to get used to the space he took, still unable to control the extra limb properly as he wished.

The wing had grown. He’d knocked the couch (and countless empty glasses) over once his feathers were out, a creamy color with hints of brown forming a striped pattern.

And oh Gaia, it felt so heavy.

He didn’t know yet how to hide it the way Sephiroth did with his, still lacking enough control over it to even try. Sephiroth had taken to letting his own wing out the most he could, in an attempt to be sympathetic, which Cloud appreciated. He liked lying down near him and covering both his lover and Cloud’s smaller, closed wing with his own.

One night, as he felt black feathers brushing against the base of his wing, Cloud let out an unexpected moan, causing Sephiroth to retreat and just stare at him for a moment too long.

“Did I hurt you?” He asked. It would be almost ironic if they were to look back at the past.

“No… I… It felt good. Do it again?”

He watched as Sephiroth sat up, staring at him with growing interest and reaching out with his hand this time to touch his wing, his fingers making their way between his feathers to rub the skin underneath just gently. Cloud’s hips moved on their own, a soft sigh slipping past his lips.

“Look at you,” Sephiroth teased, “Always so sensitive.”

The fingers sunk further between the feathers, pressing a little harder against skin before Cloud could say anything about that. He wasn’t going to just stay like that, however, moving so his head was between Sephiroth’s legs. The hand on his wing suddenly tightened on the feathers for a moment as he took Sephiroth’s cock into his mouth. It wasn’t enough to pluck his feathers out, but it was enough to send a shiver down his spine.

He looked up just in time to see Sephiroth throwing his head back, his hand going back to ruffling the feathers and drawing muffled sounds, an additional vibration around his cock.

It didn’t help that Cloud knew by then just how to suck, how to lick, when to graze his teeth over the sensitive skin just lightly and when it was best to speed up and just bob his head up and down, up and down. And it really didn’t help that he had that wing, with that particular spot Sephiroth could press on and rub to tease.

Sephiroth was too close when he let out a hoarse “...Touch yourself.” Not much after he was feeling Cloud swallowing around him, a little shaken as he hit his peak as well. Cloud let him go with a wet little noise to slap away the hand over stimulating that sensitive spot on his wing.

“You,” he started, throat sore due to the recent activity, “have a... wing kink.”

“That I didn’t know about until now… yes.”

Cloud rolled on his side, his wing falling over him like a blanket and tiredness washing over his body. His feathers brushed against Sephiroth’s legs, who shivered at the touch in the face of the previous revelation.

“We should… make use of this,” Cloud said with a smile, “for other things that aren’t just blowjobs.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Maybe. But you love me.”

“I do, yes.” Sephiroth smiled down at him before standing up again. They were in need of some cleaning up before sleep and he was sure they didn’t have any more tissues in the bedroom. “When you’re ready, I’ll teach you how to fly,” he said and then left the room.

Cloud was definitely looking forward to that flying class.


	5. System Malfuction (Memory Loss/Amnesia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If (OS version == JENOVA 7.7) Then_   
>  _{_
> 
> _Choose Partner Machine_  
>  _Activate Memory.Deleter Routine_
> 
> _}_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robot AU? Yes, Robot AU ;)

It starts as a small thing.

A minor malfunction of his memory card, they tell him when they catch it in a routine maintenance. A problem rather common among the infantry units who were assigned to work with the SOLDIER models. He shoots a look at Sephiroth, who’s watching from outside the room, without any access to that particular conversation. He prays that this doesn’t mean he’s to be taken away from his partner.

(Something about the Jenova OS having a conflicting feature introduced with the most recent update.)

They back up all of his data just in case the issue becomes worse, in case they end up needing to format his hard drive. It’s a process Cloud hates, as he can feel most of his data generating applications being shut down while still retaining consciousness; feeling bits of himself being pulled out even though they remain in his system.

Thankfully, Sephiroth is just out there afterwards, ready to take him into his arms for a much needed hug; ready to let him sink in and accept the comfort that resonates with every wave Sephiroth sends him.

* * *

Sephiroth’s the kind of android that's prone to go rogue; a bird bred in captivity who’s more than ready to see the unknown that awaits outside. An unstable SOLDIER prototype who requires a partnership with another machine both to keep him on a leash, never to leave the company, and to allow him to remain operational.

He knows those things very well.

And that’s why he holds onto Cloud; falling into Shinra’s trap out of fear that doing otherwise will mean his own destruction, that obeying no rule will only compromise the system for others who are unrelated to his particular issues.

(Eventually he falls for this little cage holding him stable, making Cloud’s safety even more of a priority.)

He does nothing but one thing that goes against what's expected of him, discreetly hacking into the system during the maintenance process and copying Cloud’s data from the bank for his own, personal backup, intending to minimize the need of an intervention in the case something serious comes to happen; never trusting the company to always repair Cloud instead of simply replacing him.

Sephiroth realizes a problem exists just as he reaches the additional information file, after he finishes copying what he needs.

It shakes him right down to his core.

When he hugs Cloud after the maintenance, it’s both to comfort his partner and himself.

“I hate backups so much,” Cloud whispers, as he always does, even if Sephiroth knows it very well; the information archived in his system as something of high priority, along other small things. The fact Cloud loves sweets, for one, even though the only real use for food they have is the speed up of the charging process by converting such things into electricity.

(The fact Cloud likes to curl up against him while charging; the feeling of their hands touching one another during the process.)

“It’s okay. I’m here,” he says, running a hand through messy spikes of golden hair, “I’m here.”

Sephiroth lets a process run to remind himself that everything will be alright, despite the forty-six percent chance that things might go very wrong.

* * *

(It really is a small thing. But all small things tend to escalate quickly.)

Cloud awakens out of his expected time, the movement and echo of multiple applications returning from their standing by state causing Sephiroth to wake up as well, catching concern in glowing, sky blue eyes.

“Where are we?”

Sephiroth watches him, not exactly confused as he half expected it from the moment he detected the issue, but still having a hard time processing it.

“Home,” he says, a small smile forming on his lips when Cloud seems to take the information well and recall whatever is missing of it on his own. Sephiroth gets reminded that they have an assignment tomorrow, as it’s also the function of an infantry unit to organize their SOLDIER partner’s schedule; being more planners and snipers than front fighters themselves.

Hopefully it’s the day the district of Wutai will finally fall and the war will end. If it isn’t, well, Sephiroth’s not sure how much time will pass with them away from home once they’re deployed.

“Home,” Cloud repeats after a while, “I’ll miss it when we leave.”

And just like that, he falls asleep again as though he didn’t just forget a small yet big detail, needing to be reminded of it. Sephiroth sighs, trying to shut down his concern so he can follow suit.

* * *

Wutai surely falls, but along with it goes Cloud, eyes flashing red and an expression of panic on his face. At first, it looks as if he’d been shot, even though they got every human, monster and machine in the area down. Turns out it’s really not the case.

Sephiroth dashes to him and holds him close, trying to keep calm but failing, overheating as he runs a simple scan to know what’s wrong. He comes up with no results to show for it, being interrupted halfway through the process by a kiss.

His own vision flashes red and then… there’s nothing.

(But there’s also something, something  _ big _ .)

Cloud looks up at him the way he did when they first met, but different.

“Unit 0811 ready, awaiting name designation and instructions.”

Sephiroth’s refrigeration system takes just a little bit more of memory to prevent his body from warming up further and causing stability issues. He lets out a breath, taking Cloud’s hand and forcibly connecting to overwrite the contents of the memory card with the backup he has of him.

Cloud hates backups, or just the overall touching of his files by those who aren’t him; the feeling of someone else pulling on the various strings of data.

So when he comes back, not only he’s confused as to what just happened to him, he’s also crying, growing alarmingly hotter as his attempts to understand the situation just failed. He needs Sephiroth to comfort him, to fill in the gaps of everything that wasn’t backed up, to assure him they’re safe even if they’re in enemy grounds.

They both feel the great battery drain from overheating, but all that matters is that they’re both cooling down; that they won this battle and are going home proud, hopefully to a system update that will prevent another situation of major data loss from happening ever again.

* * *

There’s something that’s never told to them.

Sephiroth finds it on accident while looking through data he shouldn’t be touching; data that should’ve been protected better but that wasn’t, open to anyone who could hack and do it well.

It’s a virus, spread among the infantry units and made to react to the latest update of Jenova. A data destroying button, meant to dispose of the infantrymen so only the SOLDIER units would remain active, being sent to Nibelheim in an assignment to a supposed new mission… only to be destroyed by the update itself driving them into madness.

The war they fought would be erased from everyone’s memory, along the existence of everyone directly involved in it.

Just as the whole history of Gaia had been, once, at least partially.

The more Sephiroth downloads, the more horrified he is with the things he learns, the pictures he looks at, the data available to him. Of a different Shinra which practically ruled the Planet so long ago, of a Sephiroth who was born a human being but wished for greatness, for godhood and the stars. A Sephiroth he’s a copy attempt of.

He doesn’t quite know how to break such information to Cloud, but he feels he must do so before anyone can realize his intentions and take some manner of “corrective” action.

Cloud looks at him as though he’s the nobody who became a hero in a distant past, but still himself. Still not human, as he’ll never be, but never a simple machine.

Sephiroth thinks it’s a silly decision that Shinra decided to have such a post-war plan of complete data elimination while somewhat recreating the hero who helped bringing them down the first time around, and the unstable general who almost destroyed the world as it used to be. And even worse, that Cloud had planning as one of his main functions.

* * *

They sit together on a rooftop in the old robot city of Kalm, watching — just as many other survivors of the incident — as Shinra burns down in the distance. Cloud holds his hand, leaning against his shoulder and whispering words of comfort, sweet nothings filled with hope and dreams.

(Androids, such as themselves, aren’t supposed to dream. But there’s no one left to remind them of that.)

Sephiroth thinks about how much of what happened was a last minute solution. (With a fail rate very close to fifty percent.) The code they managed to come with hadn’t been fully tested, corrupting some way earlier than it should happen, erasing the memory and rendering others without recover.

He wonders what they’ll do now that they have no masters or the rules they used to follow but comes up with nothing. That was the only life he knew and most likely, that was also the truth for the Sephiroth he was based on. He looks at his side and smiles at his partner, squeezing his hand and feeling glad that, no matter the path ahead of them, Cloud’s still by his side.

And with that, he vows not to forget all of which they’ve lost.


	6. Crossing Over The Border (Meeting In Another World)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud ends up in different worlds, multiple times, only to end up seeing a familiar face again. (And again, and again...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka in which I finally find an excuse to write something out of the original compilation world, feat. random flirting.
> 
> And it's also the last part for this week's fics, whee! Can't believe I wrote over 10k for it :D

**I.**

Cloud woke up somewhere he didn’t know.

Not that he recalled much aside from his own name, but the place definitely felt unfamiliar to him. A man in blue armor with a horned helmet helped him up, instructed him on the ways of the new world, took him to others who came from many other different worlds; dressed strangely to him and just as memoryless as he was.

They had all been summoned to fight for two opposing gods, the cause for their memory loss left unexplained. Simple pawns in a giant chessboard.

And then, on the peak of the conflict, Cloud met _him_ again.

 _He_ appeared in a flurry of black feathers, leather and silver hair and Cloud just… knew. He suddenly had memories of fire, of death and conflict, fighting for his life, breaking down under that man’s touch like a porcelain doll that shouldn’t be alive, should never have been brought into life again afterwards.

(Cloud wondered if his enemy had memories of him as well.)

“Sephiroth,” he said, a name uttered with a blanket of complicated emotions covering it.

“Hn. So you remember,” Sephiroth replied, apparently undisturbed by any of it.

Cloud wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

**II.**

He found himself in the strangest of the places, a big room with a weird apparatus in the center. Somewhere that wasn’t home, with three people dressed in a strange manner.

Sephiroth wasn’t there.

Regardless of it, Cloud could feel him, poking inside of his head and calling him to a place he couldn’t go to; the heart of a Planet he apparently wasn’t even on. He felt his fingertips tingle with the very impossibility of Reunion.

“The heat!” He shouted in pain. “Inside my head... No, stop... Sephiroth— no!"

_Either come here or stop calling me to you._

Someone was saying something about him being unstable, but Cloud couldn’t focus. He had to leave, had to go somewhere, anywhere, where he couldn’t be reached by Sephiroth’s powerful influence over him or else, those people, those strangers… they could be in serious danger rather soon.

In that world, he eventually found out, there was a flower girl too. She was just like his friend, but she couldn’t recognize him.

**III.**

Leon told him, once Cloud had the courage to tell him his own story, that he was an idiot for engaging in such a quest.

Cloud’s wing twitched but he said nothing to that accusation, for two things: One, it sounded a weird plan even to him and two, he was mostly sure that it’d work, that he’d be able to get some answers while also solving a big problem.

It was an idea he’d been unable to shake off his head even since he started remembered the occurrences from other worlds, other times, with perfect clarity. It was part of why he’d sealed a pact with Hades, hoping that it’d pull Sephiroth out of hiding and into fighting him so they could deal with their long lasting personal issues for once and all.

Only when he felt the Masamune's blade resting dangerously against his throat and soft feathers brushing against his arm as Sephiroth dragged him away, — in front of his friends, nonetheless — he realized how wrong he’d been about that.

**IV.**

Cloud would have laughed, if only he wasn’t in pain and lacking that much control over his own body.

_I was thinking about fighting you, not about ending up in a bondage session._

He knew Sephiroth could hear his thoughts through their connection, knew the man was grinning when he touched his face gently, getting closer to him to whisper something against his ear. It provided Cloud a strange feeling to be distracted with as he kneeled there, useless in his bonds of swirling dark clouds.

Cloud was starting to grow tired of that kind of encounter, which ended with him being stolen away from his companions and to somewhere else within the time it took someone to blink.

“Now, would you care to tell me why you keep ending up in other worlds?” Sephiroth asked in a mocking tone. “Do you think it’ll stop me from tracking you down? Hn, puppet?”

“Not your puppet,” Cloud said, as he managed to react to that, unsure if it’d been out of his own will or because he was given permission to do so.

“Keep saying that, while I pull your strings.” There was that laugh again, echoing as Cloud’s will was taken into full control again, in recognition that there would be no answer to that question anyway.

Oh, well. Sephiroth would find other uses for him.

**V.**

When that kid — no matter if he had told him he was a… what was that he called his job again? A record keeper? Cloud still considered him a kid, anyway — approached their group again to inform them that they’d be going in a special painting to retrieve some things and a couple adventurers, Cloud thought nothing strange about it.

Surely, the magic painting acting as a portal of sorts was one that depicted his world and of course he was looking forward to seeing old companions who had traveled with him in his journey, who shared precious memories with him. But still, he didn’t think all that much of it, constantly afraid _something_ would definitely happen if he celebrated a little too much.

He watched as the others celebrated Tifa’s arrival in that way he was avoiding to, waving his simple “hello” at her, still unsure if it was a good thing that they had been taken away from their original conflict to fight another. (Again, as he could recall it.) She’d thrown herself at him for a hug, happy to have a friend she knew in that strange situation.

The Black Mage who had been traveling with them decided to head back to the Royal Archives — the headquarters they all ended up at after exiting such paintings — so they could carry on. It wasn’t safe to travel in groups with more than five people, he’d learned.

They faced an enemy only those with magic could reach and Rufus. He didn’t remember his original fight against the Shinra heir feeling so difficult as that one did. Thankfully, it was the last battle to deal with inside the painting.

After the dust of the conflict settled down, mako green eyes met his.

_Oh no, not here, not again._

“Hello, Cloud.”

Cloud turned on his heel and walked away.

**VI.**

“Our goals no longer differ,” Sephiroth said from somewhere behind him and it felt as though the man was closer to him than he really was, “After all this time I thought it wouldn’t happen.”

Cloud didn’t turn to look at him, staring at the town from a privileged spot atop the Archives. He heard a sound break the silence, a rustling of clothing and something metallic against what he supposed was Sephiroth’s belt.

He had appeared without the Masamune and despite the kid and the moogle’s efforts, it hadn’t been retrieved. They gave him a little dagger just so Sephiroth could fight, which Cloud found more than simply amusing. Sephiroth’s expression of disgust mixed with gratitude would be forever engraved in his mind; something to laugh about whenever the times grew too dire.

“So you remember, too? The other worlds?”

“I do.” Sephiroth’s voice sounded even closer, then. “That wing looked rather good on you.”

“I still don’t get why it keeps happening,” Cloud said, choosing to ignore that… _thing_ Sephiroth had for wings, just so things wouldn’t get more awkward than they already were, “This uh, thing, in which we keep popping up anywhere except back home.”

Sephiroth sat beside him with a quiet hum, causing Cloud to finally turn to look at him; a question bothering him, no matter how silly it seemed.

“You lost a bet or something?”

He turned his gaze away as Sephiroth chuckled warmly, gave a negative reply to his inquiry and chuckled some more. A leather clad hand took Cloud’s own, squeezing it just gently. He felt his nemesis — now an ally due to the circumstances of that world — move a little closer to him, leaning in to whisper something.

“If I had lost a bet, I think I’d have ended up on your bed, naked. And we wouldn’t fight because you’d just accept it at this point, wouldn’t you?”

“Or... I’d push you out of my bed, for all the shit you pulled on me,” Cloud shot back, biting on his lip to keep the effect of Sephiroth’s breath near his ear well hidden.

“You’re too good to do that to anyone, Cloud.”

His teeth grazed Cloud’s ear, stealing with it a bit of composure.

“Y-you’re an asshole.”

“Maybe. Now, let’s just enjoy this truce a little, shall we?”

Cloud had a feeling that he’d wake up somewhere he wouldn’t remember getting to, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 can be found [here](http://illusioneery.tumblr.com/post/170363925580/)!!


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